


Considering The Date

by Die_Melodie



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkwardness, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Sort Of, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 09:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Die_Melodie/pseuds/Die_Melodie
Summary: Dirk just had to go and climb into his bed and blame it on the universe. Except he didn’t really.





	Considering The Date

**Author's Note:**

> Dirk Gently is without exaggeration the best thing to have happened to me in years. I'm definitely not the best thing to have happened to Dirk Gently, but, well.

When Todd wakes up, he’s much warmer than he was when he went to bed. This is a little unusual: his bedroom normally gets quite chilly by morning. Todd is not complaining though, and he basks in the pleasant warmth for another couple of seconds, until his brain registers the fact that there is another person right next to him.

Todd doesn’t scream. He doesn’t fall out of bed either, although that’s a close thing.

 “Good morning,” says Dirk. “You always sleep so late, Todd! Have you ever realized what a great part of the day you are missing?”

The alarm clock at his bedside table says it’s 9 a.m. Judging by the part of him that’s visible above the covers, Dirk is fully dressed and about ten times more awake than Todd himself.

“Dirk,” he rubs at his eyes. “What are you doing in here? Also, please tell me you aren’t wearing shoes.”

“Of course not,” Dirk sounds offended. “Lying here in my shoes for two hours wouldn’t have been very comfortable. And as to your first question, there was an arrow.”

Suddenly Todd is much more awake.

“Are people going to be shooting bows at us?” _Again_ , he doesn’t add. Dirk doesn’t look like he’s been hurt, that much at least is a relief.

“What?” Dirk says. “Not that I know of, although that would be ironic considering the date, wouldn’t it?”

The alarm clock, which also double-times as a calendar of sorts, says today is February the 14th. And Dirk is still going on: “So no, I don’t think we need to worry about assassin archers for now.”

“You just said there was an arrow.”

“Oh!” Dirk shakes his head, props himself up on one elbow. “Not that kind of arrow. Do you remember those floor tiles in my bathroom, the dotted ones?”

Todd nods, still without the slightest idea of what is going on. The feeling is well familiar by now.

“As I was stepping out of the shower I happened to look down, and bam – there it was, right in front of my eyes, a pattern I never noticed before. The dots were forming an arrow, and it was pointing right here.”

“To my bed?” Todd raises an eyebrow, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Something in his voice – or, possibly, something in his poorly hidden subconscious – just made the whole question sound like a big fat innuendo. The same thought must have occurred to Dirk too, because he flushes.

“Well, it was pointing in the general direction of your flat. But where else would you be at half past six in the morning?”

“Right,” Todd says. “Wait. My apartment is a floor above yours. How exactly did your arrow manage to point upwards?”

“Well,” Dirk hedges. “It was definitely pointing somewhere, and after giving it some thought I decided I wanted that “somewhere” to be here. Considering the date.”

This is the second time he’s said that within the last three minutes. Todd considers the date. Then he considers Dirk. Then he pinches himself discreetly underneath the covers, because there is simply _no way_. This must be a new type of hallucination, one designed to mess with him in sneakier ways than usual.

“Are you all right?” Dirk says, and there is a new nervous quality to his voice. “Should I have brought you coffee? I should have brought you _something,_ now that I think about it. I really have no idea what I’m doing.”

Now this could mean literally anything: Dirk doesn’t know what he’s doing at pretty much any point of time. The self-deprecating way he says it, though…

“Dirk?” Todd pushes himself up on one elbow to mirror his pose, hears the same nervous note in his own voice as he says, “I am about to jump to conclusions. If you don’t want me to jump to conclusions, now would be the perfect -“

“On the contrary,” Dirk says. “I’ll be relieved if you do.”

And the thing is, for all the times that Todd has thought about it, tried to figure out whether Dirk was gay or straight or anything at all, he never actually thought about where he himself fit into the picture. A protective mechanism of sorts: he was mostly straight, Dirk was most probably not interested, and it was so much easier to just not think about all the ways he could fuck everything up. And then Dirk had to go and climb into his bed and blame it on the universe, except he didn’t really. For fuck’s sake, Todd is still not entirely sure he’s _anything at all_.

“I never celebrate Valentine’s Day,” is what comes out of his mouth in the end, and Dirk’s eyebrows do a complicated twist before his face starts to fall. He’s not moving, but Todd shoots out a hand on automaton, and grabs him around the wrist before adding, a little desperately, “But if you’d like to go grab a coffee or something?”

“Yes,” Dirk says, no pause, no hesitation. “I’d love that, Todd.”

***

Later, after they’ve braved the coffeeshop and beat a couple of teenagers to the coziest table in the corner, Dirk looks at him and smiles like they have a secret, and Todd, despite himself, starts laughing.

 “So the universe told you to make a move on me, huh?”

The smile turns wry, and Dirk points a plastic straw at him. “Not quite. _I_ told the universe to tell me to make a move on you.”

Shaking his head, Todd busies himself with the coffee. Under the table, their legs brush together and stay that way.

He’s just starting to think that Valentine’s Day might not be so bad after all when a man in a purple catsuit crashes through the window and fires a flaming arrow at the barista.


End file.
